A hearse pulls up outside Nashville's Ryman Auditorium in 1967, and the man who steps out has been living in the back of it. David Allan Coe — ex-convict, street busker, and one of outlaw country music's most notorious pioneers — was about to write his way out of obscurity and into country music history.

From a childhood spent in reform schools and the Ohio penitentiary to penning the working-class anthem Take This Job and Shove It, Coe forced his way into the 1970s outlaw country movement alongside Waylon Jennings and Willie Nelson. His story raises an uncomfortable question: does a truly authentic, uncompromising persona require destroying your own reputation?

• Lived in a hearse parked outside the Ryman Auditorium, busking on the Nashville sidewalk in 1967

• Spent most of his life from age nine locked in reform schools ...